Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars Preview

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The creators of Unreal Tournament's Onslaught Mode finally have their first self-published game, and it's a mouthful.

By Sam Bishop

It's entirely possible that you've played some of Psyonix's handiwork and never really heard of the developer. Its first product wasn't really a game, per se, more of a full mode contained within another developer's game -- specifically Unreal Tournament 2004. UT2K4's Onslaught mode was originally going to be developed as a stand-alone mod, but series creator Epic Games was so enamored of the addition that it contracted Psyonix to develop the mode to ship as part of the full retail package.

It was a fortuitous partnership -- even if Epic eventually brought the mode in-house for Unreal Tournament 3 -- because it gave the fledgling developers a chance to work hand-in-hand with Epic's team; they had access to the folks creating art for the game and developed a keen understanding of the Unreal Engine and its underlying tech.

That knowledge has allowed Psyonix to serve as something of a consulting firm for both Epic and licensees of the Unreal Engine, and given its familiarity with the technology, it's hardly surprising that Psyonix's first entirely self-funded and self-published game, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars (henceforth known as SARPBC or "sarrrpbic" as I've come to know it), uses the Unreal Engine 3 as its foundation.

But wipe those visions of bald space marines and ridiculous battle armor from your mind; the main characters here are cars -- cars of the decidedly zippy, flashy variety. The best possible way to describe SARPBC is soccer with cars, and though that particular descriptor could be applied to other games' one-off or mini-game modes (the later ATV Offroad Fury games on the PS2 immediately spring to mind), no car-powered soccer game has ever featured "players" this agile.

Imagine a futuristic metal ball hurtling across an enclosed field as you race toward it. Another driver smacks into the ball at high speed, but since they struck it from ground level, the game's Ageia Phys-X-powered physics gives the ball just a bit of lift. Since you arrive just seconds after they hit the ball, you veer to the side, use the car's boosters to launch yourself into the air just above the ball, flip the car over so the roof makes contact with the ball, and send it hurtling into the goal. Now imagine all that happening in the course of just a few seconds.

It's probably safe to assume that this comes off the back of hours of practice, as my limited time with a seemingly complete build of the game left me just a little flummoxed as I attempted to pull off some of the acrobatics that Psyonix's veteran staffers were pulling off with ease. Still, after a few minutes of learning the controls, I was getting there: the triggers control gas/braking, a single tap of X will launch the car into the air and a double-tap is (wait for it) a double-jump. While in the air, Square turns normal flat spins into flips and rolls (important for pulling off more advanced hits like the one mentioned above), Circle kicks on boost (picked up in small doses from pads on the ground or a full refill from canisters scattered around), and really, that's about it. Throw in some Square-powered e-brake turns and you have a game that's quick and decently complex, but still accessible.

That complexity -- or, dare I say, depth -- carries through to some of the more advanced moves in the game. Most players aren't going to be doing vehicular bicycle kicks into goals in their first few seconds with the title, so working up to more nuanced techniques: stuff like using the double-jump and left analog stick to dodge out of or into hits or even just gaining a huge head of steam to go supersonic, tinting the screen blue and literally reducing any cars touched while charging forward to rubble.

Rubble, mind you, that you influence, but that doesn't influence you. Psyonix was keen on keeping the game as fun as possible, and that means eliminating things like errant bits of debris affecting your handling (though you're free to charge right through any fenders or tumbleweeds and watch them go bouncing away).

The philosophy was actually born out of the game's entire design process. Originally just a spin-off mode of Onslaught, Psyonix continually tweaked the game and though it always included vehicles of some type, the goal had changed multiple times before a one-off mini-game of soccer became so popular that it grew to be the game's entire focus.

Well, not the entire focus.

Those mini-games weren't completely forgotten, after all. In truth they make up a significant portion of what the game will offer when it finally hits the PSN. A handful of challenges, which I'll get to in a second, serve a dual purpose; they provide something other than the straight soccer/combat of the main game, but they also act as a way to train on specific skills in some rather cleverly hidden tutorials (though there are three progressively more involved proper tutorials to go through, too).

The mini-games all revolve around a central star theme. Anywhere from one to five stars can be awarded per mini-game, and earning just one star will unlock the next challenge. Four challenges total hide one of the five extra vehicles in the game (two are available right from the start). The mini-games do still take place in variants of the three normal multiplayer maps, but there's plenty of variety in them. Winning stars in the individual mini-games is good for unlocking cars, but they'll also pour into a central star, that eventually fills all the way up after claiming the game's 165 different stars.